Outsiders Perspective founder Jamie Gill, CEO of Roksanda Ilincic and chairman of the BFC … [+]
When you look at the runway models, campaign stars and brand ambassadors today, the fashion industry is significantly more representative than it was a decade ago. But beneath this public exterior, only 5% of the total workforce is drawn from a People of Color background.*
Roksanda Ilincic CEO and BFC Diversity Committee Chair Jamie Gill is on a mission to redress the balance. This month he will launch The Outsiders Perspective, an incubator to help talented people of color break into the operational side of business.
The foreigners’ perspective is backed by British mega-brand Burberry, Deloitte, the British Fashion Council, the Office of the Mayor of London, global communications agency Karla Otto and leading online retailer Zalando.
It differs from current initiatives as it specifically targets People of Color with four plus years of professional experience as opposed to grassroots projects in schools and colleges that will take much longer to show results.
Gill is a pragmatist. He aims to get those results and get them fast. We spoke in August, just days before the scheme officially launched.
“I believe we’re getting it to the right level of experience,” he says. “It’s philanthropic, but it’s also feeding an immediate business need. Brands want to address their diversity issues. They’re looking for talented people of color, but recruiting is taking too long because, often, they don’t know where to go.”
In many ethnic communities, fashion is not considered a viable career path: “Law, finance and consulting are seen as ‘safer’ options for candidates who may not have the personal and financial networks necessary to enter a more ‘professional’ arena. dangerous’ like fashion. .”
The outsider’s perspective will help facilitate matchmaking and the integration of this talent with its brand partners.
The aim is to recruit lawyers, accountants, bankers and the like who have an active interest in fashion and valuable transferable skills but, due to “social mobility factors and cultural nuances”, initially chose more corporate careers. Under normal circumstances, he says, you wouldn’t even look at Burberry without five years of luxury fashion experience under your belt.
Starting today is a five-week recruitment drive to fill the 25 places in the pilot group of the scheme. Successful candidates will attend a series of evening seminars and networking sessions with managing directors, chief trading officers and chief marketing officers from its partners. They will be given a comprehensive overview of different business models, industry trends and challenges, while learning how they can transfer their skills.
“We’re asking brands to be patient and take risks,” says Gill. “Candidates may not have five years of experience in fashion, but they’re smart, skilled and educated, so just give six months more than someone who’s gone the traditional route.”
This approach is a product of Gill’s own career trajectory. The executive, himself of British-Indian descent, grew up in a Derbyshire mining town and began his career in architecture before switching to chartered accountancy. He learned about the fashion industry on the job through a start-up he launched for the Indian luxury bridal market, eventually joining the board of Roksanda through an executive role at a luxury fashion venture capital fund.
The short-term goal for The Outsiders Perspective is to successfully incubate its first cohort. “We’ll find out where the gaps are – both on our side and on the candidate side – and what kind of further support is needed, but if we can get the first 25 people into a new career, that’s a start really strong.”
Gill is also in the process of introducing other major brands and groups to the program. “The response has been fantastic, there has been no ‘selling’,” he says of the response. “We just talked with Meta; brands are open to me about their needs; people have already approached me and we haven’t even started yet.”
Moving forward, he already has his sights set on US expansion: “The dream is to become a preferred hub for holistic talent through a lens of diversity. All we need to do now is grow the numbers so we can scale.” And while, for now, the partner’s “significant” investment is based on resources as opposed to equity, it is certainly open to formal funding rounds in the future.
Interested candidates and brands can learn more here: The perspective of foreigners
*MBS Group: Diversity and Inclusion in the Fashion Industry
